


how do we know which part of the story matters?

by the_cosmos_lonely (dheiress)



Series: character studies [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pretentious Prose, Serotonin-free work, Sort Of, TMA 170
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24586123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dheiress/pseuds/the_cosmos_lonely
Summary: Martin Blackwood, like everyone of us, is a story made up of stories.(He does not know this yet but this is also a story about love, requited.Jonathan Sims, Jon, Jon, scarred and tired and afraid Jon, an apocalypse in love with Martin as much as Martin is in love with him, they will walk hand in hand in this hellscape and perhaps will come out of it unscathed, perhaps not, perhaps not at all, it does not matter, whatever tragedies awaiting in the future, whatever tragedies trailed the past, nothing changes the fact that, here right now, past the fog of Loneliness, at the edge of another horror, inside the arms of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood is in love and feels so very loved in turn.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James, Martin Blackwood & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: character studies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777162
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	how do we know which part of the story matters?

This is a story about family, three parts more than a whole.

His mother, cold and distant, her screams and her silence his faithful companions throughout a childhood only recalled in snapshots (reaching up to turn the knob on the stove, burnt eggs, burnt toast, burnt tea like how do you even burn tea you useless boy, other boys and their laughter wordlessly forming the sounds of 'pig, fatty, ogre, bigfoot', his right foot in a shoe that squeezes his toes and smiles at his winces), her blank stares and her antiseptic scent his only comfort throughout an adulthood of heavier lies held aloft by smaller lies (my dad's dead, I'll have the payment ready by next week, yessir I'm eighteen years old, have worked three years in a hotel, a degree in parapsychology, I'm fine, Martin K Blackwood).

His father, a photograph (rescued from a rotting photo album that miraculously escaped the fate of its brothers and sisters in the refuse) too creased and too faded to even see the shape of his face yet still a distant reminder of what could have been if Martin is just somehow better at whatever it was that made him leave, a ghost (living in the same lines of the body he inhabits, though he does not yet realise this, haunting his mother's every waking moment) too faint for him to know yet too strong for his mother's forgiveness.

Him. (Martin...that was his name, wasn't it?)

(This is also story about friends, the two that really mattered.

Sasha—dependable, competent, ever gentle, ever supporting Sasha—who talked so concerned about him in a silent language of brows and pursed mouths with Tim he was not privy to, she kept his secrets well even from himself and he loved her for it, loved her voice cold as his mother's, her hair curling just below her chin, her eyes ever calculating...but no, wait, that is not her, is it, because Sasha is...someone else, someone who can only be heard if you listen to the right tapes at the right moments, someone who can only be seen as a stranger in a polaroid picture hidden in a folder well tucked away from sight.

Tim—bright as fire, an arm always wrapped around his shoulder, a ready joke for whenever he feels down—who talked so concerned about him in a silent language of brows and pursed mouths with Sasha he was not privy to, he kept his secrets as well as his own, his smiles a disarming trick Martin could not master, they hadn't seen each other for a while because Tim has been lost the moment they lost Sasha (the real one, the one made to be a stranger to them both), the moment they didn't even know existed, and Martin didn't even understand what was happening until all was late.)

  
((This also a story about love, unrequited because he should have known better really. He met a man—has he said that to someone already, he should have, he must have—his boss, well not his boss-wage-paying-boss but more like their task-assigning-boss, who is adorable and lovely and has strict work ethic and who hates Martin because what is to love about Martin, Martin who can only make passable tea, Martin who only contribute delays, Martin who does not do proper research, Martin who likes spiders, Martin who is just useless Martin, not reliable Sasha or charismatic Tim or even somehow more trustworthy to be his eyes in the institute Melanie or sharp eyed and witty Basira, Martin does not blame Jon for not even liking him back but God does it hurt.))

  
(((He does not know this yet but this is also a story about love, requited.

Jonathan Sims, Jon, _Jon_ , scarred and tired and afraid Jon, an apocalypse in love with Martin as much as Martin is in love with him, they will walk hand in hand in this hellscape and perhaps will come out of it unscathed, perhaps not, perhaps not at all, it does not matter, whatever tragedies awaiting in the future, whatever tragedies trailed the past, nothing changes the fact that, here right now, past the fog of Loneliness, at the edge of another horror, inside the arms of Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood is in love and feels so very loved in turn.)))


End file.
